The creeping black assassin Fantômas, the criminal lord of Paris and master of disguise, has won the first round. But the equally resourceful Inspector Juve swears to win the second.
EN
“[I]n 1913 Feuillade captured the imagination of the world with the first three parts of his five-part film Fantômas. The roots of Fantômas were both literary and political. The nineteenth century heralded the arrival, in Western Europe at least, of universal literacy. But when the illiterate learned to read, they did not want to read Racine or Corneille; so a whole new genre of literature appeared. […]
The Fantômas novels clearly belong to this tradition, but they were different in content. The earlier works were what was called “improving”: by and large, the wicked were punished and the good triumphed – although often only on their deathbeds, or even after. Fantômas was the first anti-hero, the first evil hero. To be sure, he was opposed by a policeman, Juve, who stands for Good, but there was no doubt in any reader’s mind as to which was the more interesting character. Both the novel and the film of Fantômas are glorifications of evil, and one can only speculate as to the reasons why such a hero should appear in 1911 and why he should be so popular.
There is a connection, I think, with the exploits of the Bande à Bonnot and other anarchist gangs that were terrorizing and fascinating France at the time. The middle classes were terrified of these men, who indeed constituted a threat to authority and, even more, to property; at the same time, there was doubtless a thrill at the thought of the retribution which they perhaps felt they deserved. The reaction of the working classes must have been different: they had less to lose and therefore could simply enjoy the sight of the rich being terrorized. Whatever the reasons, both the books and the films captured the imagination of all France at a time when the anarchist gangs were at their most active.”
Richard Roud1
- 1Richard Roud, “Louis Feuillade: Master of Melodrama,” Film Comment (November-December, 1976).
FR
« Constater que le cinéma est apparu « après » le roman ou le théâtre, ne signifie pas qu'il s'aligne à leur suite et sur le même plan. Le phénomène cinématographique ne s'est pas du tout développé dans les conditions sociologiques où subsistent les arts traditionnels. Autant dire que le bal musette ou le be-bop sont héritiers de la choréographie classique. Les premiers cinéastes ont effectivement soutiré leur bien à l'art dont ils allaient conquérir le public, à savoir le cirque, le théâtre forain et le music-hall qui fourniront, en particulier aux films burlesques, une technique et des interprètes. On connait le mot célèbre attribué à Zecca découvrant un certain Shakespeare : « Ce qu'il est passé à côté de jolies choses, cet animal-là ! » Zecca et ses confrères ne risquaient pas d'être influencés par une littérature qu'ils ne lisaient pas plus que le public auquel ils s'adressaient. En revanche ils le furent par la littérature populaire de l'époque, à laquelle on doit, avec le sublime Fantômas, l'un des chefs-d’oeuvre de l'écran. Le film recréait les conditions d'un authentique et grand art populaire, il n'a pas dédaigné les formes humbles et méprisées du théâtre de foire ou du roman feuilleton. Il y eut bien à la vérité une tentative d'adoption de cet enfant de la balle par les beaux messieurs de l'Académie et de la Comédie-Française ; mais l'échec du Film d’Art témoigne de la vanité de cette entreprise contre nature. »
André Bazin1
- 1André Bazin, Qu’est ce que c’est le cinema? – 2. Le cinéma et les autres arts (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1959), 11.
